The Hours, Days, Years

The Hour Between

At half past four in the afternoon,
I begin to drink.
By five twenty-eight,
I am no longer here.

There is only your face—
then only the suffering
I imagine behind your eyes,
and the terrible tenderness
of being unable to touch it.

I remember how much I love you.
How love did not end
when there was nowhere left
for it to go.

It became something
I carry.

Sometimes, I reach across the silence
to ask if you are okay,
knowing that even kindness
may feel like another wound.
Knowing you may hate me
for remembering you at all.

And here,
in this life I’ve made,
I cannot find
a single person
who believes me worth
the trouble of loving.

There are afternoons
when I’m already dead,
as though this heart
has forgotten its purpose
and continues beating
out of habit.

And still, I remember.

I remember remembering
the one time we held each other,
the way our mouths met
in a world that had already decided
we could never belong to each other.

How strange,
to have been so close
to something impossible.

But before all that,
there was Sweden—

The bed I lay in,
not knowing
which country held you.

Then you came to me
as though from a dream:

There was a dune.
A long, pale stretch of sand.
The silence of a world
I had never entered—

And you stood there,
watching.

You didn’t speak.
You didn’t come closer.

You stood against the distance,
as though you had always known
that one day I would remember.

And now the afternoon is gone.
The glass is empty.
The light has left the room.

Somewhere in the world,
you are alive.

And I am here,

alone with the memory
of having once been yours.

Marni Fraser
October 9, 2026

Real Bodies | 2026